Before modernist writers proposed formalism as means of bringing order to world, they had to give readers a clear sense of disorder that required such management. They had to portray for their audience immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history, as T.S. Eliot described it (177). To this end, they produced what is often called a crisis of colonial understanding. By depicting dark underbelly of colonization, and by explaining what happens to European consciousness in colonies, certain authors made themselves appear necessary to literate Europeans. According to Joseph Conrad, Europe's troubles were direct result of a pervasive cultural influence that sentimentalized colonial venture. Thus Heart of Darkness demonstrates how Europe's sentimental view of its overseas mission not only seals Kurtz's fate but also ensures that more Europeans will succumb to it. As more than a few readers have noticed, however, what Conrad takes away with one hand he returns with other. We are tipped off to this fact when Marlow becomes Kurtz's confidante on basis of an intimacy [that] grows quickly out there (154). His belief in sentimental decorum, moreover, is so strong that it prevents Marlow from dispelling Intended's faith in her fiance's generous mind [and] noble heart (156). The sentimentality that modernism consistently rejects is not something only modernist men feel compelled to deplore. One can observe much same act of disavowal in To Lighthouse, where sentimental object par excellence is supposedly displaced by a triangular shape, figure that marks place of absent Mrs. Ramsay in Lily Briscoe's painting. What could be less sentimental-or more so? This purple shadow, as Mr. Bankes calls it, represents relationship between mother and child without creating their likeness. In this respect, we might consider Lily's triangle an ekphrastic representation of formalism with which modernist writing displaced feminine sentimentality associated with Victorian fiction. By replacing sentimental content with form of abstract figure of triangle, novel puts Lily in position formerly occupied by Mrs. Ramsay herself, position of household manager who has the whole of other sex under her protection (6). Lily's gesture implies that Mrs. Ramsay is faded and gone, freeing budding artist to over-ride her wishes, improve away her limited, old-fashioned ideas, and escape her mania ... for marriage (174-75). Transmuted from content into form, Mrs. Ramsay nevertheless haunts Lily's painting. Like Heart of Darkness, Virginia Woolf's novel appears to depend on very sentimental content it disavows. I would contend, further, that Lily's triangle not only transmutes content of domestic fiction into a contrastingly masculine form, but also allows this form to